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New Employee 1:1 Template
The first 90 days set the tone for everything that comes after. A new teammate is forming their read on how things work here, whether it’s safe to ask questions, and what you expect of them, and most of that gets decided in the first few weeks. Your 1:1s are where you shape it.
This template is built for that ramp. You get a first-week agenda you can copy today, a 30/60/90 checklist to track progress, and questions that pull confusion into the open before it hardens into a wrong assumption. If you want the broader playbook for a brand new relationship, pair it with your first 1:1 as a manager.
Start with a weekly cadence
Whatever rhythm you settle into long term, a new hire needs more contact early. Weekly check-ins for the first month or two give them a reliable place to bring the small questions they’d otherwise sit on, and they give you early signal on how the ramp is going while you can still adjust. A new teammate who only meets you every two weeks spends a lot of that gap guessing.
You’ll ease the cadence later, usually once they’re owning work without needing you to unblock them constantly. Until then, weekly is the default, and it’s worth protecting the slot even on busy weeks.
The first-week 1:1 (copy this)
The first check-in is mostly about the relationship and expectations, not the work itself. Spend more time listening than talking, and keep your own agenda short. The goal is for them to leave knowing how you like to work together and what good looks like in month one.
First-week 1:1 with [Your name] & [New hire name] Date: __________ | Cadence: Weekly (for now) 1. Welcome & how you like to work (10 min) - How's the first few days felt? - How do you prefer to get feedback? - Async or live? When do you do your best work? - Anything from onboarding that's still fuzzy? 2. What good looks like (10 min) - What I'll expect in your first month: - How we measure progress here: - Who you'll work with most: 3. Their questions (5 min) - Anything you weren't sure was okay to ask: - What would make week two easier: 4. Follow-ups & close (5 min) - Action items (who / what / by when): - One thing to revisit next week:
Paste it into a shared doc and let the new hire add to it before you meet. Asking them to contribute from day one signals that this is their meeting too, not a review you run at them.
The 30/60/90 arc: learn, contribute, own
A new hire doesn’t go from day one to fully productive in a straight line, and expecting them to is how good people end up feeling like they’re drowning. The 30/60/90 framing breaks the ramp into three phases so you and the new teammate are measuring against the right thing at the right time.
Days 1 to 30: Learn
This phase is about absorbing, not output. People, tools, how decisions get made, where things are kept. Your job is to make it safe to ask anything, and to catch what's still confusing that nobody thought to explain. Productivity here looks like good questions, not shipped work.
Days 30 to 60: Contribute
Now they take on real work with support nearby. They'll hit blockers and make a few wrong calls, which is normal and exactly what the weekly check-in is for. Watch for whether they're getting unblocked fast enough, and whether they feel comfortable flagging when they're stuck.
Days 60 to 90: Own
By now they should be owning a clear piece of the work with less day-to-day hand-holding. This is where you hand over real responsibility and pull back your own involvement. If they're owning work and unblocking themselves, that's your signal the ramp is landing.
A 30/60/90 checklist
Run through this in your weekly check-ins. It’s a guide, not a grade: if something isn’t happening by its window, that’s a conversation to have, not a failure to log.
| Phase | By the end, they should |
|---|---|
| By day 30 | Know the people they work with most, have access to the tools they need, understand how work gets prioritized, and feel safe asking you anything. |
| By day 60 | Be delivering real work with support, raising blockers early instead of stalling, and getting regular feedback they can act on. |
| By day 90 | Own a clear area with less hand-holding, know what they’re working toward next, and have a shared view with you on how the ramp went. |
Adjust the windows to fit the role. A senior hire may own work sooner; a career-changer may need the learning phase to run longer. The arc matters more than the exact dates.
Questions that surface confusion early
New hires rarely announce when they’re lost. They worry it’ll look like they’re not catching on, so they nod, guess, and quietly fall behind. The fix is to ask questions that make it normal and easy to admit something isn’t clear yet.
- “What’s something you assumed would work one way but turned out different here?”
- “Is there anything you’ve been doing that you’re not totally sure is the right way?”
- “What’s a term or acronym people use that you’ve been nodding along to?”
- “Where do you spend the most time second-guessing yourself?”
- “If you could get one thing explained properly, what would it be?”
For more in this vein, the broader list of 1:1 questions to ask works well once the relationship is past its first few weeks.
Build a two-way feedback loop early
Feedback is easiest to normalize when the stakes are still low, so start in week one. Give small, specific, frequent notes rather than saving everything for a formal review: a quick “the way you wrote that up was clear” paired with “next time, loop in design before you start” teaches them how feedback works here without it feeling heavy.
Then ask for it back. A new hire sees your onboarding with fresh eyes that you’ll lose in a month, so questions like “what slowed you down this week that we could fix?” or “was anything I said unclear?” do two things at once: they improve your process, and they prove that feedback runs both ways. That’s how you end up with a teammate who tells you when something’s wrong instead of waiting for you to find out.
New hire 1:1 FAQ
How often should I meet a new hire?
Weekly for at least the first 30 days, and often through 60. A new teammate has more open questions, less context, and fewer people they feel safe asking, so a predictable weekly check-in gives them a standing place to surface things instead of sitting on them.
What should I cover in the first 1:1 with a new employee?
Spend most of it listening. Cover how they like to work and get feedback, what good looks like in their first month, and anything from onboarding that's still unclear. Keep your own agenda light: the first check-in is for setting expectations and building trust, not delivering a status update.
What is a 30/60/90 day plan?
It's a simple framing for ramp: the first 30 days are for learning (people, tools, context), days 30 to 60 are for contributing on real work with support, and days 60 to 90 are for owning a piece of it with less hand-holding. You use your weekly check-ins to track where they are against that arc.
When can I ease off the weekly cadence?
Usually around the 60 to 90 day mark, once they're owning work without needing you to unblock them every few days. Ease off by stretching to biweekly rather than dropping check-ins entirely, and let the new hire weigh in: if they still want weekly, keep it.
Keep the whole ramp in one place
A copy-paste template gets you started. A shared workspace keeps the first 90 days from scattering across docs: your follow-ups carry forward on their own, every past check-in stays put, and the new hire can add topics before you meet. You’ll have a real record of how the ramp went instead of trying to remember it.
If you also want to know how to structure the broader meeting, the 1:1 meeting agenda template is a good next read.
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